By Venuri Gangodawila
“When it comes to the culture of South Asia, a ‘woman’ is a very poignant factor for its survival.” We all have heard these kinds of statements since long ago. But do you think that these provide any luck for the women in here? No. That is the reason I think this statement is ironical. However literally, there is a constant truth in this pronouncement because it is the woman who gives birth to another being in this earth. But when it comes to the point of reality, it is much bitter for women to survive in this so called culture as it limits many routes of freedom form women here in South Asia. It is like this. “If you are born a female in South Asia, you just have to wait for the whole lot of social ethics to be put on your back but you should not make any complaints!” And not only the concept of ethics bother women, but also many other aspects which are discussed accordingly in which women in most cases become victims of.
Stereotyping women
As we all are aware, the South Asian culture has a certain mold for women which demands her to be like this and that and how to behave in certain occasions protecting her femininity and above all, the respect of her family. The society tends to stereotype women according to their choice and men has a huge say in this. The male dominating society and male chauvinism which prevails in the continent of Asia has become a threat to women where they should always be under the control of some man in their life, be it her father before her marriage and her husband aftermath. In most cases, a woman is unfortunately considered to be a property of a man, especially in the regions like South Asia where a man culturally has the full authority to treat a woman the way he prefers as her body belongs to him and sadly the woman is bounded by the same culture to bear it no matter what harassment comes in her way. A woman like that is considered to be the traditional and the exemplary woman here in Asian region where we live. As said above, social ethics is only a part of it and a South Asian woman should possess a strong mind and a strong heart which could forbear a lot of emotions, mostly pain.
This notion of stereotyping onsets with the concept of “virginity” which gives a great horror for the female population in South Asia. This custom can be thoroughly found in countries like Sri Lanka and India where the traditional bride should be proved to be a pure virgin before she could start her new life. And the unfair part of this norm is that the groom is never tested for his fidelity. Also if she fails, the sole responsibility is on her and she alone has to bear the blunt. Even though she could pass the above test, the chastity should be protected like her own life where Taslima Nasrin, a Bangladeshi-Swedish author and a physician says, “In traditional societies, we have a long legacy of men controlling the body and mind of women. Such societies have valorized motherhood and fabricated concepts like chastity. Women have been the victims of these notions for thousands of years.” This is completely true. Because since the time of innocent princess Sita who had to sacrifice her own life to fire for the sake of her chastity towards the King Rama, women were never free but there, no one bothered to question King Rama’s ill treatments for Sita. In addition to chastity, also the exemplary motherhood is a major expectant from women in Asia where she has to make babies, raise them good, cook, do cleaning stuff and be a household mother who at the same time should manage the day to day tasks too and also to be thrifty of her husband’s money.
Limited access to education
Well this can be mostly seen in the rural areas of countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh where girls are banned from going to school and gaining education. That is why brave girls like Malala rose to fight for the justice of girls’ and their right of education because girls there had to marry instead of going to school and learning about the world. These are mostly underage marriages or which are simply known as child marriages and has become a major problem in those countries where India acclaims more than one third of world’s child marriages countdown. This is a grave violation of human rights. The consequence of this norm is the increase of uneducated population of women rurally and also the complications of health which makes women to be humans who are helpless in every way. Luckily Sri Lanka does not practice this cultural norm. Not anymore.
The gender gap in economy
Although Hillary Clinton has once quoted, “women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world.”, the latest findings in Asian continent has proved rather unfortunately where there is quite a large reduction of female employees specially in South Asia where less than one third of active female employments are present and they are also paid much lesser than men. Even the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim states those are “shocking inequalities” and he also states that if there is an increase of women labor and employment, there can clearly be another 19% of economic growth in South Asia alone. But the truth is that, it is much harder for an Asian woman to enter into the mainstream economy like politics and administration. If we take politics in Sri Lanka as an example, even though Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the world’s first female prime minister is proudly from our island, today a Sri Lankan woman cannot enter politics without any form of bribery and even harder to remain in the field, according to my opinion.
The main issue here is that I think Asian women are believed to be inferior to Asian men and they are believed to be of lesser capacity than them. At the same time they are mostly involved in softer line of occupations like secretaries, receptionists and teachers.
Social insecurities
This is the most important factor which makes it much difficult for a woman to survive in Asia. That is because women has no social security anywhere, whether on the road, in a public place or even at their own homes. It’s the shocking news of gang rapes, sexual assaults, physical abuse, domestic violence and most tragically, the murders we hear every day concerning women. These are mostly prevalent in the South Asian regions. For example the bitter period of time in Sri Lanka back in 2012, when rural women of the village of Kahawatta, Kotakethana were brutally killed in a series, the gang rape and the murder of Sivaloganthan Vidya in May 2015 at Jaffna and the gang rape and the brutal murder of the medical student in India can be taken as strong evidence in this riff.
But when we look into the past, it was totally opposite. Sri Lanka was said to be a place where a full jeweled woman holding a gem could travel all the way from the point Dondra to point Pedro without any hassles and India was a land of beautiful and brave Princesses. What has become of these lands now? Has the evolution of the human race resulted backwards? Nothing else but the minds of people are the thing at fault. Those are much polluted, we can observe. The dignity for a woman in Asia has been degraded shockingly where men doesn’t seem to clarify that it is the same woman as their own mother, their own sister or as their precious daughter. Instead, every woman has to be in fear of any sort of harassment coming in their way be it physical or mental abuse.
On the other hand
The above notion of social insecurity also has another aspect where Asian women are constantly struggling to become better or to fit in for the society they live in. This is mostly regarding their outlooks. The competition in the Asian market for beauty products which highlight the notions of skin whitening and anti-aging can be taken as major examples here. It is as if Asian women are obsessed with the facts being fair and young as the society demands a woman to be so. Here, if a woman is not physically attractive, it becomes a major social insecurity for her and for her family too where the issues of marriage and all comes after.
Therefore as conclusion I would like to suggest that there should be a clear paradigm shift in the minds of people living in South Asia and the culture should be updated according to the time. This would encourage South Asian women to live up to their dignity and respect more freely and that would definitely drive our Asian continent towards a much better place and a much beautiful place to live in.
